Morocco World News with Maghreb Intelligence
Morocco World News with Maghreb Intelligence
Rabat, August 4, 2012
Since the coming of the Spanish right to power more than eight months ago, the already complicated relations between Madrid and Algiers, deteriorated further. While the officials in Algeria bet on the decidedly anti Moroccan, Mariano Rajoy, perceived to be more aligned with the positions of the Polisario and Algeria, there is a total disappointment. First, the Spanish Prime Minister did not hesitate to spend his first trip outside of the Iberian Peninsula in Morocco, a tradition established since the coming to power of Filipe Gonzalez, and which no other successors had never departed from.
It was not the visit to Algiers by the Spanish Foreign Minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, whose knowledge of the Arab world is rudimentary, that could calm the situation in El Mouradia (The Algerian Presidential palace). That being said, what was until then a simple misunderstanding, quickly turned, over the last few days into an unprecedented crisis.
The decision of Spain to repatriate its nationals working in the Tindouf camps as humanitarian workers has provoked the ire of the Algerians. Phones calls were heated between the two capitals when Madrid indicated its decision, two days before sending a military plane to Algiers to repatriate its nationals.
According to one diplomatic Iberian source, Algerians initially refused the request made by Madrid, saying that the country was able to protect foreign nationals on its territory. Madrid responded by providing the Algerian authorities with the evidence gathered by the Spanish intelligence services- known by its Spanish acronym as CNI- inside Tindouf.
Indeed, after the kidnapping of its two nationals in October 2011, Spain has reactivated its networks in the camps of the Polisario on Algerian territory, thus violating a “Gentlemen Agreement” between the INC and the Algerian Department of Intelligence and Security- known by its French acronym as DRS- which prohibited each of the two services to be active on the territory of the other. However, the CNI maintained for many years several Honorable correspondents (informant) inside the chain of command of the Polisario Front.
During a visit to Madrid, one of those Honorable Correspondents warned the CNI of an imminent terrorist action in the refugee camps controlled by the Polisario in the south-western Algeria. Faced with the information presented by the CNI, the Algerian authorities were convinced of the righteousness of the step taken by the Spanish authorities. However, they demanded that the information be kept secret. Beset by major internal problems, the Madrid government did not take this demand into account and publicized the repatriation operation, hoping to get some political gains. This has angered Alger, which instructed the DRS to conduct a cleansing campaign among the Polisario executives suspected of having “intimate” relations with Spain.
